The suggested reading list at the end of this book says a lot: One Hundred Years of Solitude; The Jungle Book; City of the Beasts; Ghostwritten and The Fall of Yugoslavia. The Tiger’s Wife does a great job of creating a country preoccupied with death. The reality and the threat of death are presented as the lasting preoccupations of a country waiting for then split in two by war. The old lean on superstitions and the young are made lazy and self-indulgent by it.